As we now begin to hear more and more excuses for last week's 16-8 Senate vote to approve casino gambling in New Hampshire it is becoming even more apparent that SB 152 is moving ahead for the wrong reasons.

Here at Foster's Daily Democrat we are particularly disturbed by first-term state Sen. David Watters, D-Dover, who had responsibly resisted the Siren's call of false wealth while in the New Hampshire House.

At one time Watters had seemed to understand that the social costs of expanded gambling are incompatible with the New Hampshire way of life and that to venture forward would be to take a perilous path.

Now, with Senate blood flowing through his veins, he has succumbed to Gov. Maggie Hassan's drumbeat that the poor, downtrodden and jobless can only be rescued by casino gambling.

As Hassan has repeatedly pleaded: Without gambling monies “we will risk falling behind economically, we will risk losing out on good jobs and innovative businesses, and we will risk letting the people of our state be denied access to the basic services needed to support their health and safety.”

It is unfortunate that Watters has fallen for the “woe is me” sleight of hand practiced by Hassan and other gambling proponents such as Sens. Chuck Morse and Lou D'Allesandro who drank the casino lobby's Kool-Aid many years ago.

Watters and others among the pack of 16 who voted for casino gambling need to realize New Hampshire is not the Titanic, having hit an economic iceberg and with water flowing into its hull as it heads to the ocean's floor.

Nor is casino gambling the pot of gold Watters argues in his Community Commentary appearing on Page B3 of this issue.

While beat and battered by the worst economy since the Great Depression, the grand old gentleman Granite State still stands rock solid, albeit a bit more weathered. And as he recovers so will the economy and with it the flow of tax dollars into state coffers.

These will come from the business profits tax, from the interest and dividends tax, from the room and meals tax, from increased car registration revenues as more drivers buy newer vehicles, and from myriad other revenue sources that ebb and flow with the economic waves.

Now is not the time to panic. Now is not the time to abandon ship and grab on to the life preserver called casino gambling. Now is the time to call for calm, for Concord to keep tight the state's economic belt and to make targeted and judicious changes that won't come back to bite us down the road with the law of unintended consequences.

To that end we laud the comments of Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, D-Portsmouth. “I believe it wrong for the state's economy and it is wrong for the state's citizens,” said Clark. “It is wrong now and it is wrong into the future.”

Hopefully, Clark's level-headed philosophy will be reflected in the House which has held steadfast to the cause of no casinos in past legislative sessions.